Many motorists depend upon their vehicles to support their livelihoods as well as their lifestyles, whether making a cross-town commute, conducting daily business, traveling long distance, or pursuing weekend recreation.
When the passenger compartment and interior of a vehicle has reached its cargo-carrying limit, or the motorist wishes to routinely transport a wide variety of cargo items, many motorists turn to their vehicle's rooftop or truck-bed exterior cargo-carrying capabilities to meet their needs. These situations can include transport of industrial, utility or construction equipment, such as toolboxes, large tools, ladders, lumber, plumbing pipes, buckets, or carrying bulky personal items such as luggage, furniture, boxes, bags, and recreational equipment, including bicycles, skis, kayaks, canoes, surfboards, windsurfing and other oddly-shaped, oversized apparatus.
Odorous, wet or soiled cargo items are also commonly transported on vehicle rooftops or in or above a truck-bed, for example. These items include spare vehicle tires, tire jacks, automotive accessories, fuel cans, large coolers, power tools, heavy clothing, wetsuits, fishing gear, and related sports equipment.
Over the years, a number of external cargo-carrying systems and styles have been created for vehicles for different cargo-carrying needs. One or more load bars mounted to vehicle rooftops, camper tops, or truck-beds, for example, enable motorists to secure various cargo items, such as ladders and lumber, directly to these load bars, supporting the cargo above the vehicle or camper exposed rooftop, or above the truck-bed, for example.
Some styles of load bars are factory-installed, while others are custom-mounted on vehicle rooftops or above a truck-bed. Load bars can vary in size, shape, load-bearing capacity, rooftop/truck-bed placement, mounting hardware, style and design. Load bars also enable motorists to attach a variety of available cargo carrying systems and components to the load bars and their vehicles. Load bars typically span the length and/or width of a vehicle rooftop surface, or the length and/or width of the truck-bed. Affixed to each end of a load bar is a load bar foot mounted to the vehicle rooftop or truck-bed walls and/or floor, using bolts, pins, rivets, clasps, hooks or other fasteners.
Heavy duty, construction, service and industrial application racks are generally open frame, scaffold-style beams or similar structures, mounted into pickup beds to allow overhead loading, transport, and unloading of long, heavy items such as ladders, plumbing materials, lumber and plywood.
For service industry and construction workers, toolboxes and gearboxes are often mounted in pickup beds. Trucks and vans, such as contractor, plumbing, and utility service vehicles, are commonly customized to include side-opening doors configured into locker style compartments incorporated within the vehicle. This arrangement allows the user easy access to tools, toolboxes, hardware and other equipment.
For travel and recreational enthusiasts, and those motorists seeking a variety of cargo-carrying solutions, many roof/truck-bed rack systems depend upon cargo specific mounts or components, such as bicycle mounts, ski mounts, and watercraft mounts, attached by a bracket or clamp to the roof/truck-bed load bars of their vehicles. Cargo specific components, when mounted to a vehicle's load bars, are designed to suspend specific cargo items above a vehicle's rooftop or above a vehicle's truck-bed. Motorists then load and secure and/or lock cargo items to these components directly, using customized locking mechanisms or conventional tie-down devices, such as ropes, straps, and bungee hooks.
With many cargo-carrying systems, separate mounts are designed for different cargo items such as bicycles, skis, snowboards, kayaks, canoes, surfboards, and fishing poles. Most specialized components include a combination of moving parts in their design, which can be difficult to manipulate in cold temperatures.
Another popular load carrier is the enclosed cargo container, which is also mounted directly to the roof/truck-bed load bars of vehicles. Cargo containers can be detached from vehicle load bars when not in use, or they can be left locked in place. Mounting and dismounting of these containers generally depends upon brackets and clamps mounted to the interior floor panel of the containers. This process is substantially easier when the container is first emptied of its cargo contents.
Cargo containers generally include one large top access door with a hinging mechanism on one side, however, the cargo container may comprise one or more doors on said top side for access to the interior of said cargo container. Cargo containers can be square shaped, or curved in pursuit of more aerodynamic function and stylized appearance.
Some load carriers are open structures in more or less basket style configurations. These can have wire sides or tubular or rod pieces jointed together to form a basket shaped, open top structure. The open nature of the basket design allows for transport of bulky items such as fuel cans, spare tires, boxes, furniture and bags.
Various cargo-specific components are also available, designed to attach directly to basket-style load carriers, including individual mounts for bicycles, skis, snowboards, kayaks, canoes, surfboards, and fishing poles. When cargo is secured to these mounts, cargo items are suspended above the basket, limiting available cargo space within the basket itself. Straps from gear or duffel bags, backpacks, and smaller, odd shaped items can slip through the floor and sides of basket style load carriers, potentially coming into contact with and damaging surfaces of the vehicle.
Some load carriers are pan or tray-shaped, with four short sidewalls and generally solid floor panels. The open configuration of a pan or tray-style load carrier enables the user to carry mixed loads of bags, boxes, or other bulky items, reducing the possibility of cargo items contacting the vehicle's surfaces. The user secures cargo items directly to the load carrier floor panels, rails and fixed anchor points, including eyelets and hardware that commonly protrude from the load carrier pan. Securing cargo loads requires tie-down devices such as straps, ropes, cargo netting, tarps and bungee hooks.
The load carriers and cargo systems described above have certain limitations, and a different type of vehicle-exterior load carrying system is needed to solve problems with the structures and/or the use of the prior art, and to fill many needs. The invented system meets many or all needs.
Objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.